Kodak Grey Card

Last week I got a Kodak Grey Card. In actual fact, it was a set of two large grey cards, and one small one, but that’s by the by.

What is a grey card?

For those of you that don’t know, your cameras light meter aims to make the scene it is metering on average 18% grey. This is why pictures on the beach or with lots of snow in often come out under-exposed (darker than they should be - i.e. grey), and dark (night-time) photos often come out over-exposed (lighter than they should be - i.e. grey). (In fact it’s not just your camera’s meter that does this - machines used in photo labs to print pictures aim to get the overall image to be 18% grey, so when you think you’ve been cunning and got a great photo of star trails, the print shop totally screw up when they come to print the picture. Ahh, the number of arguments I’ve had on that one!)

Using a grey card

I digress. So, if you have a grey card, you can take your camera meter reading off this (in the same light that is falling on your subject), and the theory is your exposure will be spot on. In addition to this, you can use it to ensure you have a perfect white balance, no matter what the lighting conditions.

The results

I’ve not had much of a chance to play with my new card, but initial results have been quite encouraging. Sorry about the subject of the following photo, but as you can see the exposure is quite good, as is the colour rendition:

So there you have it - a first attempt. I’ll probably post more on this subject as I get used to the techniques, so watch this space. I’m sure you can’t wait…